Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985)

Howling II's production history was one of poor funding and broken promises at the hands of Hemdale Film Corporation. Steven Lane, producer of The Howling, recounted how the film was made, 'So sequel rights (to The Howling) were mine, and a lot of people were interested in financing one. However, I couldn’t do a direct sequel to Dante’s film as those rights were Embassy’s. I was determined I was going to turn a profit somehow on the investment, so I shopped for the best deal I could find. That turned out to be with Hemdale who offered the proverbial ‘too good to be true’ deal. And of course, it was. They could offer me a great deal since they had absolutely no intention of honoring it.'

Lane also recounted about Howling II's director Philippe Mora's treatment by Hemdale, 'The way in which Philippe first became involved has a lot to say about Hemdale. He had just finished (A Breed Apart) for them on a decent budget with Kathleen Turner and Rutger Hauer, which they had yet to pay him for. They told him if he would direct Howling II they would pay him for both films. I’m not really sure he ever got paid for either. We were finishing up production on (Howling) V (1990) when I finally got my first financial statement on II out of Hemdale.

Hemdale had basically no money at all, and seeked out financing from the international market, impacting the filming locations as well, with prospective choice hopping from Los Angeles to Mexico to Spain to finally Czechoslovakia precisely as it was cheapest to film in. And of course, this impacted the film's special effects.

The werewolf suits were the work of Ellis 'Sonny' Burman's Cosmekinetics company, with the actual supervision falling to Jack Bricker. Among the Cosmekinetics team were Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler. Cosmekinetics was based in Los Angeles, while the actual filming was taking place in Prague (on location and in Barrandov Studios). Johnson recounted how he got the job in Fangoria; the production's chaos in Fangoria;

'I had some time off after working on Ghostbusters, and I was looking for something to do, (...) I heard through the grapevine that Sonny Burman had The Howling II in his shop and was looking for someone to go to Czechoslovakia to apply the work. I went to see Sonny's business manager and he said, 'Have you got a passport?' and I said 'Yeah'. He said 'Have you got it with you?' I said 'No' and he said, 'Can you be on a plane tonight?'

Johnson later would recount in Cinefantastique about how chaotic the actual production was, 'I think the production was collapsing even that early on. All I did was apply what was sent over from Sonny’s studio. They [Cosmekinetics] weren’t getting paid (...) Things changed from day to day, even hour to hour. There was no time, no money, no plans. We got by with suits, some hair, and some fangs.'

Jack Bricker's werewolf suits, which were fabricated back in LA by Cosmekinetics but with Hemdale's meagre funding, were derided by both Johnson and Lane as looking like 'Planet of the Apes suits'. Ellis Burman himself had such a low opinion of the werewolf suits that when seeing one worn as a prank by Shannon Shea years later, all he could say was 'Damn that Jack Bricker.'

Scott Wheeler believed the 'ape suit' look was an accident on Jack Bricker's part. 'When (Bricker) built the understructures of these particular makeups, they pushed a little further out and a little more roundish than was originally intended, and that gave it more of an ape look'. Wheeler also notes that the full body hair suits looked cheap because the musculature padding underneath did not show through the hair as well.

The Cosmekinetics crew stayed in Czechoslovakia for six weeks on scenes requiring makeup effects. A prosthetic wolfman makeup was designed by Rob Burman for the brief car sequence; with other prosthetic facial makeups applied to Marsha Hunt and Ferdy Mayne.

The werewolf orgy scene, in which only fangs and fur were applied to Sybil Danning, Marsha Hunt and Judd Omen's nude bodies, resulted in the production's strangest moment; when Steve Johnson applied the fur to Omen's penis, the actor started getting erect, and had to stop it by bellowing opera lyrics. Wheeler would recount, 'I was so glad I was not Steve Johnson that day'.

Fur applied on Sybil Danning, note the prosthetic ears.

Steve Johnson applying the Ferdy Mayne makeup.

Rob Burman's wolfman makeup.

Rob Burman's makeup in the film.

Because Cosmekinetics was based in Los Angeles, all they could do was deliver the body suits and some prosthetics to the Prague crew, meaning the more elaborate makeup and prosthetic effects were shot in LA during post-production thanks to the lack of funding! An example was the more wolf-like puppet head seen briefly in some shots; shot in extreme close-up to hide that it was filmed months later back in LA!

The other puppet heads made during post-production included a rudimentary 'change-o-head', a werewolf dummy rigged with squibs, and two human dummy heads for death scenes. Philippe Mora had a rather DIY approach to the dummy head's grue, as he recounted to Fangoria;

'We have a good dosage of head bursts. I seem to have a fancy for that; I did an exploding head in Mad Dog Morgan. We used lamb's brains stuffed inside a wax sculpture. Lamb's brains are very effective. Lamb's brains and tomato soup. This is probably a particularly Australian approach to exploding heads.

Lamb's and pig's brains were used in The Howling II, depending on the intelligence of the character. You see, pigs have a higher I.Q., so if the character is smarter, it is recommended to use pig's brains. I won't tell you who we used lamb's brains for in the movie.'

Other closeups of flesh pressing, nails growing out, etc were done back in LA with more or less the same methods as Rick Baker performed on American Werewolf in London. According to Mora in the same interview, all of the post-production effects sequences took just ten days to film.

(I like to believe the lamb brains was used for the human deaths as both were idiots)

A puppet of the Stirba staff gargoyle (presumably made with the same moulds as the static prop gargoyle) was also made for the sequence when it comes alive and kills a priest. I suspect that two puppets were made; a rudimentary puppet sent to the crew filming in Prague for the flying shots, and a more articulated puppet made later at Cosmekinetics's studio in LA for the closeups of the dummy attack.

Sources:

• Fangoria #49 'The Transylvania Connection' Interview with Philippe Mora about Howling II.
  
• Fangoria #134 'The New Breed of Werewolf FX' by Mark Salisbury
  
• Cinefantastique Vol 22 No 1 'Still Howling After All These Years' (August 1991)
  
• First Person Monster Blog, 'From Evil Dead to Cute Dogs' (Shea's recounting of Ellis Burman's low opinion of Jack Bricker's work)
  
• Arrow Video's Howling II bluray 'A Monkey Phase' featurette interviewing Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler about Howling II.